Trump suspends payments to the UN’s World Health Organization — and Canada should too
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Summary
Donald Trump announces that the United States is pulling all funding from the UN's World Health Organization, and Canada should do the same. Ezra Levant explains why we should do it, and why it's our bloody right to do so.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. An amazing statement yesterday by Donald Trump, just so casually, and boom,
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it's done. He said he's, well, he's not quite ready to pull out of the World Health Organization,
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but he's going to pull out his dollars. And it was just a taboo that he just broke like so many
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others. He just said it and did it. I'm going to talk a little bit about why we should do it too.
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Before I do, let me invite you to become a video subscriber to this podcast. Join Rebel News Plus.
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that at rebelnews.com. Get your eight buck a month subscription. Okay, here's the rest of your
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Donald Trump suspends payments to the UN's World Health Organization, and Canada should too.
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It's April 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Donald Trump announced yesterday that he's suspending all U.S. payments to the World Health
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Today, I'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a
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review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization's role in severely mismanaging and
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covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what's going on there.
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American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO. In contrast,
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China contributes roughly $40 million a year and even less. As the organization's leading sponsor,
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the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability. One of the most dangerous
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and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China
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and other nations. They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced
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and suspended travel from China, saving untold numbers of lives. Thousands and thousands of people
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would have died. That's amazing. It's even more amazing that Trump said all that just a day or so
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after the World Health Organization's boss, an Ethiopian political boss himself named Tedros Adinam,
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was telling the world just how well he got along with Trump and how much Trump loved him. Look at
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this great video mashup put together by our friend Avi Yemini. The United States is actually the largest
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contributor to WHO. American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year. And I have met
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President Trump a number of times. Everybody knows what's going on there. And what I know is that
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he's supportive. It's a disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations.
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They were very much opposed to what we did. Fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China.
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And I hope the funding to WHO will will continue. Today, I'm instructing my administration to halt
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funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted. And the relationship we have
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is very good. And we hope that this will continue covering up the spread of the Corona virus.
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What a laugh. Now, the World Health Organization, that name sounds so good. Who could be against
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that? But it reminds me of one of historian Robert Conquest's famous sayings. The simplest way to
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explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization, he wrote, is to assume that it is controlled by a
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cabal of its enemies. So, for example, the Dairy Board is really about stopping imports of affordable
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affordable dairy. The Taxi Commission is really about keeping out drivers like Uber. You get the
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picture. So, the World Health Organization, it's not really about world health, is it? In fact, no
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organization has done more to make the world sicker in the past 90 days than the disgraced, discredited
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United Nations entity and its corrupt leader, Tedros Adhanom.
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Kean Bexley did an excellent video on just who this Tedros character is. I'm not going to call him
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doctor, even though he likes to call himself one, because he's just got some PhD. He's not actually
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a medical doctor. He's the first non-medical doctor to lead the World Health Organization,
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which again goes to Robert Conquest's point. Why would you not have a doctor running a health
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organization? Why would you do that? Well, why would you choose a corrupt political bully from Ethiopia
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who oversaw massacres and was actually complicit in covering up cholera epidemics?
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Why would you choose him as your global health czar? Well, precisely for those reasons. If you
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were communist China, which installed him in the UN, they're taking over so many global institutions,
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and what luck for them that their capture of the WHO was complete just before this Wuhan coronavirus.
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If you want something specific, look at this. This is from January 14th.
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Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human
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transmission of the novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China.
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That was a lie. Everyone knew or should have known it was a lie.
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Other people saw right through the lie. Remember what that Taiwanese doctor told me the other day?
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Things were so suspicious about this virus. Even in December,
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the Taiwan sent in a little squad of their own to check things out in Wuhan. And what they saw,
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and the Chinese government's hostile reaction to their inquiries, was enough to make them pull up
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the drawbridge on travel from Wuhan. So in late December, there was our CDC person already
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take note about what's going on. So they sent an expert to China in Wuhan in early January. And that
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really, that was real action to see, oh, there was a problem there. So I put it the long way.
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But you see, we are very close to China, and we are aware that there is something we cannot handle.
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You know, there was no information sharing. We are always on this alert. And that makes us well prepared.
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Yeah, so we know that China lies. But now we know that WHO lies for China. So why would any self-respecting
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country stay in the WHO? I mean, let China and its colonies stay in whatever. What's the point of a
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World Health Organization that isn't for the world? It's just for China. It's not about health. It's about
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propaganda. And in terms of organization, well, I don't know about that. They seem pretty disorganized to me.
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Flip-flopping on the virus, flip-flopping on masks, denouncing anyone who is for closed borders.
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It sounds exactly like Canada's health bureaucrat, Theresa Tam, with her bizarre advice on those
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exact same subjects. And that is not a coincidence. Because not only does she support the WHO,
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she's on a supervisory committee of it. Do you see the problem? Canada is up to its eyeballs
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in this fraudulent organization. Remember that doctor who hung up on the Hong Kong reporter,
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who simply asked him about Taiwan and how they fought the virus?
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Right. Because I'm actually curious on talking about Taiwan as well, on Taiwan's case.
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We decided to give Dr. Alward another call to follow up.
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And I just want to see if you can comment a bit on how Taiwan has done so far in terms of
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Well, we've already talked about China. And, you know, when you look across all the different
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areas of China, they've actually all done quite a good job. So with that, I'd like to thank you
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very much for inviting us to participate. And good luck as you go forward with the battle in Hong Kong.
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If I had COVID-19, I want to be treated in China.
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I'm embarrassed to say he's a Canadian. And of course, the liberal government here just loves
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him. So we're in deep with the WHO as we are with so many parts of the worst parts of the UN.
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And I have to tell you, whatever else Donald Trump will be judged on in the full course of history,
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I think his appointment of conservative judges will certainly be one legacy that will last.
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I think his boosting of NATO will be remembered.
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I think his ending the charade with Iran, pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Syria.
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I think his total support for oil and gas and coal, those will all be Trump legacies.
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But one of the most important, surely, will be his rebuke of the United Nations, not just
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the WHO, but remember this glorious, glorious moment.
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I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
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I represent Pittsburgh, not Paris. Isn't that great?
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He's out of the global warming scheme. He's out at least financially from the health scheme.
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Maybe he'll leave other parts of the UN too. Let the Chinese have it.
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They already do, really, along with the Qataris. Let them have it.
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What's the point of the place if China has a veto over the Security Council, which it does?
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What's the point of the place if in the General Assembly, tiny little countries like Nauru and
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Tuvalu have one vote, just like mighty America has one vote?
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I mean, there's only so many times that the UN can vote to condemn Israel and condemn America
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and cheer on North Korea and Iran. We get it. We get it. You're corrupt and run by dictators,
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I truly think it's possible now, probably not under Trudeau for Canada. He's too wedded to the UN.
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He loves it. You might recall that in February, when the virus was really on its air in Canada,
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Trudeau just up and left Canada for nine days to go on a UN vote hunting trip to Africa,
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visiting one dictator after another, dumping foreign aid money to bribe them for their votes
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at the UN. It was shameful. Why are we even doing that? Well, Trudeau will be Trudeau,
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but perhaps other countries will get out of the World Health Organization, too. Other countries
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follow America's lead on things. For example, when Trump moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem,
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a number of other countries followed, including big countries like Brazil and Hungary, places like that.
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And remember, Trump has always been friendly to Taiwan. He made waves back in 2016 when one of
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the first world leaders he talked to on the phone was President Tsai of Taiwan, even before he was
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inaugurated. Not only did China hate that, but of course, all the fancy people in foreign affairs
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did, too. So maybe Trump will get a few other countries to leave the World Health Organization
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with him. Maybe he'll leave a few other agencies at the UN, too, pull out not just personnel,
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but money and just get out. And maybe set up something that works instead with allies,
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democracies. Trump likes allies. Trump works well with groups. Ask NATO.
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The good news is that the allies have started to invest more in defense. After years of cutting
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defense budgets, they have started to add billions to their defense budgets. And last year was the
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biggest increase in defense spending across Europe and Canada in a generation.
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It's also because of your leadership, because of your clear message.
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No, I have said it before. But the thing is that it really has, your message is having an impact.
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So wouldn't it be great if Trump joined forces with the best health care systems in the world
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from a pandemic control point of view? Wouldn't it be great if the USA and Taiwan and South Korea and
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Japan set up a real health agency? I'd want to join that one instead of the World Health Agency.
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Wouldn't you? Who knows? They might even elect a boss of it who's a real doctor, not a corrupt Chinese
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agent like Dr. Tedros. Hey, I'd nominate Jane Philpott from Trudeau's Fired Cabinet.
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What do you think? If you want to support our petition to get Canada out of the World Health
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Organization, well, that petition is over 20,000 names strong. Go to whowantsout.com and add your name to it.
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We cannot tolerate that. But since I don't have any inferiority complex when I am personally affected
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or attacked by racial slurs, I don't care because I am a very proud black person or Negro.
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That's what came from some quarters. And if you want me to be specific, three months ago,
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this attack came from Taiwan. We need to be honest. I will be straight today.
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And Taiwan, the foreign ministry or so, they know the campaign. They didn't dissociate themselves.
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They even started criticizing me in the middle of all that insult and slur.
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Tedros Adhanom, the Chinese-backed head of the World Health Organization in the United Nations.
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I don't want to call him Dr. Tedros because, of course, he's not a medical doctor.
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If someone in the theater said, help, is there a doctor in the house?
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I'm happy to say that Tedros Adhanom has been taken down a peg by no one less than Donald Trump,
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the president of the United States. Joining us now to talk about the World Health Organization
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and Trump's decision is our friend Ben Weingarten. You know him as the author of American Ingrate,
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the book about Ilhan Omar. And he also writes for The Federalist, where his latest essay,
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let me quote the title, is World Health Organization director, again, parrots Chinese propaganda in
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anti-Taiwan tirade. Ben, how are you doing? Nice to see you again.
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I'm doing well, Ezra. Thanks so much for having me on today.
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Well, let me ask you this question. Well, it's a pleasure to have you on, by the way. You always
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bring a lot of smarts to the show. A lot of the usual suspects are clucking about the United States
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stepping away from the World Health Organization, but they're the people who have skin in the game.
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They're people who would profit from it. They're people who are associated with it. But just like
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when Donald Trump quit the UN global warming scheme, I don't think any normal people cared.
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In fact, they sort of cheered. Can you tell me what the American reaction has been to this Trump
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decision? Is there a grassroots uprising saying, no, no, no, stay in? Or was it just meant with shrugs
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and no one even cares? Well, to put sort of an empirical glean on this, the American people pull
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overwhelmingly in the way of saying that they believe China is disproportionately responsible
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for the coronavirus. They agree with the Trump administration's policies on trade to punish
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China for their lack of free, fair and reciprocal trade with the U.S. And on this issue of the WHO
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in particular, while, as you note, the elites who think of themselves as being in the mainstream
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in their views are all up in arms and predictably, frankly, shamefully parroting Chinese propaganda
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on this, claiming that the administration is trying to make a scapegoat out of the WHO or
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the administration is trying to make a scapegoat out of the Chinese Communist Party, in effect.
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The reality is, I don't think that most Americans, the man on the street, really buys that line
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of reasoning. And I think the very simple argument to be made for this decision is, why would America
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spend another penny on an institution that is doing the Chinese Communist Party's bidding and who,
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in so doing, has caused American loss of life, limb, and obvious treasure as well? It would be a
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suicidal policy to do so. So what the president did was entirely rational to rational people in
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the country, but it's not rational people that are the ones populating the newsrooms on the East Coast
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Yeah. You know, at least when Trump pulled out of the global warming conference, that had a lot of
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media attention. Year after year, it was this time in November or December where it was like a week
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of global warming politics coverage. So people sort of were aware of it. I really don't think anyone
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severely normal, as I like to say, had really thought about the World Health Organization,
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really knew anything about it. And so to hear that Trump is pulling out of it, it's sort of,
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okay, I didn't, it's like when Sir So-and-So's obituary appears. Well, a lot of people didn't
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even know Sir So-and-So was alive in the first place. So I think it's a, it's a no downside decision.
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And I find it an encouraging foreign policy statement of finally standing up to China
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and the globalist institutions that it's managed to colonize.
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It's absolutely right. And I hope that the administration makes the point and will make
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the point here that look, China having a Chinese Communist Party backed director general of the
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WHO is illustrative of their much broader strategy, which is to try to influence, corrupt and pervert
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every global institution to which they are party. And their kind of chosen figures are leading any
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number of UN-linked and then outside UN, global institutions as well. This is a clear part of
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their grand strategy. And so the fact that we are showing now that we will pull the plug on an
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institution that works in an adversarial fashion towards US national interest and the interest of
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the West more broadly, I think is a very positive sign. And I assure you that in Beijing, they are
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taking note of it. Yeah. You know, I was reminded recently that one of the first phone calls Donald
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Trump made after he was elected, before he was even inaugurated, was with President Tsai, the leader of
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Taiwan, President of Taiwan, who has been marvelous in this whole pandemic. And I understand that since
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they've got enough masks for themselves, they're now sending masks to allies like America and the UK.
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Trump has always been skeptical of China. He's always been a friend to Taiwan, more or less.
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Do you think that Trump will step things up diplomatically or militarily or economically with
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Taiwan? I mean, I remember that phone call in 2016 created such a stir, oh my god, you're picking a
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fight. I like plucky little Taiwan. And I wonder if America could or should do more. You don't want
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to needlessly provoke a conflict with China. But it's again, symbolism. We should speak clearly about
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who is a trustworthy ally and who's an untrustworthy enemy. Absolutely. And the Trump administration
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throughout this crisis has not only maintained open communications with Taiwan, which as you know,
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it has dealt with this pandemic perhaps better than any other land on the planet. But as well,
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they've also tried to push for Taiwan to be included in WHO emergency conferences on this issue,
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in particular because under Chinese pressure, the WHO has not let Taiwan participate, for example,
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at the World Health Assembly over the last several years. The Trump administration and actually Congress
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as well have also taken steps indicating a desire to further strengthen relations that go far beyond
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just the area of public health and welfare as well with respect to Taiwan. And I suspect actually that
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that's part of the reason why you've seen this pushback from the Chinese Communist Party by way of their
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mouthpiece in Tedros. I would suggest it was bizarre that he even raised this issue in the middle of a press
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conference, which was largely about the fact that Tedros was being criticized for foretoeing the Chinese
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Communist Party line. So what was his reaction to that? It was to play the race card, but in particular
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to play the race card against Taiwan. And Taiwan is a thorn in China's side. I think in large part,
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besides the obvious historical issues surrounding Taiwan, that Taiwan shows what a truly free and democratic
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China could actually look like. And that really poses an existential threat to the Chinese Communist
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Party, because it really shows the failure of the CCP in many ways. Yeah. Oh, it's such a wonderful
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country. You know, we tried to send a reporter there about a week ago, but the Taiwanese diplomats were
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insistent that he spend two weeks in quarantine on the Taipei side, and we just couldn't take a reporter out
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of action for two weeks. But I was appreciative, even though I was disappointed, I was appreciative
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of how seriously they're taking border controls. That's why they've had only single digits mortality.
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But let me come back to that bizarre rant that we started this segment with. Listen, politics is a
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rough and tumble business. Everyone gets criticized, especially in the era of social media. A lot of
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criticism is mean, even racist, personal insults. But for the secretary general of such a massive
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organization in the middle of the largest crisis of its existence, to go on a weird tangent like that,
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playing the victim. And even in that clip, I think he said the insult was made like three months ago.
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Like it was such a weird, whiny complaint. It was bizarre to begin with, and unseemly and childish and
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oversensitive. But take a look at these images, Ben. These images are pouring out of China.
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Hand, little videos from cell phones of Chinese police rounding up anyone who is black. And to my
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surprise, there's a lot of Africans, including from Nigeria, in China. This is Guangzhou, I believe.
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They're being rousted out of their apartments. They're being rounded up. And just based on the
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color of their skin, I think we have one more image of signs that are going up in English,
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because Nigerians read English. Yeah, this is a restaurant in McDonald's saying no black people. Do
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you see that? We're informed that black people are not allowed to enter the restaurant for the
00:24:39.380
sake of your health. Consciously notify the local police. So this is a sign that's being put up in
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English for Nigerians to read around town. And by the way, this was all confirmed by the Chinese
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foreign ministry a couple of days ago. So this is not disinformation. They really are rounding up
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anyone who's black, blaming them for the virus, Ben. The chutzpah of that, and Tedros Adhanom,
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completely silent. It truly is an amazing juxtaposition. And I actually reached out to
00:25:16.420
spokespeople at the WHO to ask some very pointed questions about, can Tedros point to any specific
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examples? Can he link those examples to Taiwan, let alone Taiwan's government? And Taiwan, of course,
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has flatly denied it and essentially called it slanderous, what he accused the Taiwanese people
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of. And then, of course, post that episode, there were all of these accounts, it's been revealed,
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that were posing as Taiwanese, thanking Tedros and apologizing to Tedros. But of course,
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they were communist China-backed accounts, it appears. So juxtapose that with a Chinese Communist
00:25:53.540
Party regime that discriminates on any number of bases. And these images that you're showing,
00:25:59.700
speak volumes in and of themselves. But of course, this is a regime, a regime that discriminates on
00:26:05.220
race, it discriminates on religion, it discriminates on ethnicity. And of course,
00:26:09.380
it discriminates on holding any sort of political views, antithetical to or dissenting from the
00:26:15.140
prevailing Chinese Communist Party orthodoxy. So chutzpah doesn't even necessarily do justice.
00:26:22.820
The idea that there was something like a Chinese Communist Party disinformation operation
00:26:27.380
that effectively Tedros was participating in versus what actually occurs on a daily basis,
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if you were in the crosshairs of the government to China today.
00:26:37.060
Yeah. Well, occasionally, voices in the West speak up for Tibet. I think of,
00:26:45.700
I think it was Richard Gare was the name of one Hollywood actor that really focused on that. I think
00:26:49.860
that was for personal religious reasons. What I mean is like at the Oscars or the Grammys,
00:26:56.820
when you have all the lovies, the Hollywood lovies going up there, and they're making a very short
00:27:01.620
political point. I don't see any of them taking on China. And I think that's because China is an
00:27:07.940
important box office market for Hollywood now. But this racial aspect, this anti-black aspect is so
00:27:16.980
acute. Can you tell me, are there any voices in America that traditionally speak up against anti-black
00:27:24.980
racism, whether it's the NAACP or even the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center,
00:27:31.780
the Black Congressional Caucus, the Squad, Ilhan Omar, who you've written a whole book about?
00:27:39.460
Is there any leading anti-racism activist in America that you've seen who has even mentioned
00:27:49.060
this, I'm going to call it a Jim Crow style crackdown on blacks in China? Have you seen anything?
00:27:55.460
To my knowledge, no. And it speaks volumes about the way in which the relationship between the US
00:28:04.740
and China has evolved, such that really, the Chinese Communist Party corrupts everything that
00:28:10.500
it touches. There are so many people with such a vested interest in maintaining the status quo sort
00:28:16.580
of relationship that even on these matters, such as racism, for example, where people are so passionate
00:28:23.380
about them. And if nothing else, there are people on the left who would want a virtue signal in a
00:28:28.100
situation like this. The silence really is deafening. And again, I would suggest that it's a function of
00:28:34.340
the fact that so such a great vested interest in maintaining this relationship. And then sadly,
00:28:41.380
there's also the cynical political angle of this, which is that any attack on China is probably viewed as
00:28:47.380
helping Trump. And all too sadly, that is sort of what I believe you can reduce a lot of the coverage
00:28:53.780
of this issue to, is that this pandemic is about Trump. It's not about who perpetrated it and what
00:28:59.780
the proper response should be. It's about how can we use this to leverage this for political ends.
00:29:04.980
It's really sad and shameful. But that has been sort of my takeaway, having analyzed this since it really
00:29:10.900
began, I call it in late February or early March here. Yeah, you know, I saw something the other day.
00:29:15.860
Of course, we all know that the US Navy carrier Theodore Roosevelt had to dock at Guam because there were
00:29:22.820
some virus cases on the ship and there was some controversy around that. I see that the Chinese
00:29:29.860
propaganda outlets are boasting that their aircraft carrier, I think it's called the Liaoning,
00:29:36.500
is sailing. I mean, clearly designed as a counterpoint. Look how strong we are. Okay,
00:29:43.140
that's China. That's propaganda. That's their job. But CNN, take a look at this. CNN actually published
00:29:51.460
a snarky attack quoting Chinese propaganda saying, ha ha, look at that. China can keep their aircraft
00:30:00.260
carrier floating and Trump can't. And actually citing China, quoting the People's Liberation Army
00:30:08.580
Navy, as it's called, outright stenography for the communist propaganda. These are the same folks who
00:30:17.780
for three years were saying Russia was meddling in our democracy. Now they're actually handing the mic
00:30:27.700
over to Chinese propagandists. Yeah, I think there's been sort of a meme going around about calling it
00:30:34.100
Xi-NN. And I think that it is wholly proper. And of course, it's not just CNN incidentally, but any number
00:30:41.540
of publications that have revenue streams associated with either running Chinese Communist Party-linked
00:30:49.380
inserts within their publications. They did, many of them had these kinds of relationships with Russian
00:30:54.660
sources as well, not talked about during the whole Russia hysteria of the last three years.
00:31:00.180
But it's an excellent point that really hasn't been exposed to a great enough extent, which is that you
00:31:05.860
have people serving as unregistered foreign agents for the Chinese Communist Party today. We've had
00:31:11.460
hysteria for more than three years about untoward foreign influence, where there was none. Here you
00:31:17.540
see a clear episode of it in real time of a hostile adversarial power propagating these narratives that are
00:31:26.580
wholly designed to try to delegitimize us, deflect from the fact that they covered this up, suppressed it,
00:31:33.220
and as a consequence, thousands of people have died around the globe. It's shameful from our media,
00:31:40.180
and it really needs to be called out their hypocrisy on this. They don't have any standards except
00:31:46.020
double standards is really, I think, the only way to summarize it. Let me ask you one last question,
00:31:51.060
because about a week or so ago, an ethnically Chinese reporter with a Chinese accent asked a
00:31:58.980
question of Donald Trump in his White House briefing. And he may or may not have known who
00:32:04.740
she was. He may have been shown a list because he said, where are you from? And she said, Hong Kong.
00:32:11.220
And he said, you know, owned by the government. Here's a quick clip of that. Take a look.
00:32:17.060
Allah has agreed to spend $250 billion, many billions of dollars in our country, much of it
00:32:24.900
going to farmers and manufacturers. So I'll let you know. I mean, I hope they're going to honor the
00:32:30.340
deal. We'll find out. Are you cooperating with China? I don't know. Who are you working for,
00:32:34.260
China? You work for China or are you with a newspaper? Who are you with? Hong Kong Phoenix TV.
00:32:39.700
Who owns that? China? Is it owned by China? No, is it owned by the state? No, it's not. It's a private owned company.
00:32:46.900
Okay, good. Okay. Look, so she said, I don't know if you saw that, Ben. She claimed that she was from
00:32:55.780
Hong Kong, a privately owned company. But Hong Kong Phoenix is actually run by a former high ranking
00:33:03.380
Communist Party official invested by the mainland China. And there was another reporter who did the
00:33:08.980
same thing to Trump. He claimed he was with Taiwan. But of course, it was a pro-Beijing propaganda
00:33:16.100
outfit. Let me ask you this question. Why is the White House allowing these deceptive reporters
00:33:26.660
into the White House briefing? There may be some journalistic validity to their questions,
00:33:32.980
but that's an accident. Their main point is to poke and prod and be agents of
00:33:38.580
Communist China in that White House briefing. Do you understand what's going on there? Do you think
00:33:44.180
it's trickery? Do you think Trump likes it? Why are basically China propagandists allowed to press some
00:33:51.220
questions? Well, what I would say is this. The State Department has essentially said that if you work for
00:33:58.100
a Chinese-backed outlet, Chinese mainland-centered outlet that you are effectively serving as a
00:34:08.260
propagandist if you're working in the U.S. And of course, we've expelled some of them and they've
00:34:12.980
expelled then some Americans, not that it's at all reciprocal in any sense. The reason that these
00:34:18.980
reporters have been allowed to participate is as a consequence of the American media that has given
00:34:25.860
them entree to this particular organization that enables you to serve as press in a White House
00:34:32.420
briefing. I have to believe that in the case of this particular questioner, that what the
00:34:38.260
administration was doing was actually allowing the media to walk into a trap and expose themselves
00:34:43.700
by permitting there to be a Chinese Communist Party-backed, effectively journalists participate.
00:34:50.020
All that said, it was right to expose our media for engaging in, frankly, I don't see any other
00:34:56.660
way to describe it, but sort of treachery. But that said, going forward, I do not think that any of
00:35:02.580
these reporters should ever be able to step foot on White House grounds, period, full stop. I mean,
00:35:07.540
again, it's sort of an asinine paradigm that we face. Could you imagine the Chinese Communist Party
00:35:13.140
permitting American reporters to go into a briefing like that with Xi? It's completely unimaginable. And I think
00:35:18.820
that says it all about the unfair nature of this relationship and why it's been so essential that
00:35:24.660
I think the Trump administration has reoriented it to an unprecedented degree, certainly since Nixon
00:35:30.260
first went to China back in 1972. Yeah. Well, every once in a while, I refer to a Pew research study of
00:35:38.180
international attitudes towards China. To my surprise, Sweden, in their latest report, was the most hostile
00:35:45.220
country towards China in the whole world. I found that unusual. Canada was number two. That's because
00:35:49.860
they've taken a couple of Canadian hostages and hold them still. US, Japan, Korea were not far behind.
00:35:56.660
I would love to see a new Pew research study. I would love to see what they think of China in Italy,
00:36:03.300
in Spain, in the UK, in Nigeria. I wonder if Pew will even do that because I've got to think this
00:36:10.660
is backfiring with severely normal people, even if the CNNs of the world still love it. What do you
00:36:16.740
think? Has China come out poorly here or is the propaganda working? Look, I think their propaganda
00:36:24.100
is effective but only to a point because people cannot deny what they see in front of their eyes,
00:36:31.060
and that is a shutdown of the global economy because of something that originated in China,
00:36:36.340
that China sought to suppress, and that now China is cynically seeking to take advantage of by after
00:36:44.180
hoarding all of this essential personal protective equipment, then trying to sell it back to the rest of
00:36:49.700
the world at a marked up price, much of which was defective. And now, of course, they're putting
00:36:54.100
on export controls supposedly to try to prevent there from being defective supplies being shipped
00:36:59.780
out. So the rest of the world is not getting the supplies that we need. I just don't see them
00:37:04.500
fooling anyone at the end of the day. It doesn't mean that I necessarily believe that China is going
00:37:09.700
to pay the price that I believe China desperately deserves to pay for what they've inflicted on the
00:37:15.220
world. But I do think that this is hurting them immensely. And if you want to look at a concrete
00:37:19.460
example of it, one element of this is that the UK, which has typically taken a very soft line
00:37:26.180
with respect to China, several officials, senior government officials in the UK are now saying that
00:37:33.620
they're rethinking the Huawei relationship and they have to take a serious relook at their entire
00:37:40.180
relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. That would be a major domino to fall from the perspective
00:37:45.780
of halting the Chinese Communist Party's grand strategy. And I really hope the rest of the world
00:37:52.500
Yeah, me too. Well, Justin Trudeau will be the last domino to fall. He couldn't be more in the tank
00:37:57.700
for China. It's just by every measure, he is absolutely submissive to them, even though, as I say,
00:38:04.100
they maintain two Canadian hostages. It'll be interesting to me to see what the NBA does, to see what
00:38:09.220
Hollywood does, to see how much the American public will let them sell out. I look forward to seeing
00:38:16.420
how that goes. Ben, you've been very generous with your time today. I want to plug your book one more
00:38:20.420
time. It's called American In Great. What a fascinating detailed analysis of Ilhan Omar. And
00:38:27.380
I just love that title. It's so spot on. Ben's also a columnist with The Federalist. Appreciate all your
00:38:32.900
time today, Ben. My pleasure, Erza. Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you. Okay, stay with us.
00:38:48.820
On my monologue yesterday about Justin Trudeau breaking social distancing rules, Jake writes,
00:38:54.020
my widowed father spent Easter by himself because we chose to do the right thing. This is absolute
00:38:58.260
tyrannical hypocrisy from Trudeau. Yeah. And he just sort of said it and did it. And the media were
00:39:05.460
fine with it because they're all on his payroll. Laura writes, I've seen so many sheep defend the
00:39:11.220
PM's hypocrisy saying that he deserves it because of his hard work. How can you not think this is
00:39:15.460
insulting to all healthcare workers working nonstop and leaving their children behind? Shame on him
00:39:19.700
and his supporters. Well, listen, I think we left the shame part a long time ago. I mean,
00:39:25.220
they voted for a guy who was in blackface so many times he couldn't even list a number of how many
00:39:30.100
times. On my interview with Jim Carahelios, Ron writes, I received my tax receipt today for a
00:39:36.340
donation I made to Carahelios campaign. I told them that I want my money back if they stick with kicking
00:39:40.980
Jim out. Yeah. Look, I mean, I like Jim. Um, as if you, I don't remember my first interview with him,
00:39:47.700
I asked him some critical questions. Does he really have the team? Does he have the horsepower? He's a
00:39:51.940
good guy. He's a gadfly. Frankly, I like the cut of his jib. He's a good rebel, isn't he?
00:39:56.980
I don't know if he's a prime minister in the making, but I like what he has to say. But let's
00:40:01.380
say I'm dead wrong on that. Let's say he's the worst thing that could happen in the conservative
00:40:05.460
party. He's totally wrong. Let's say his email about Waleed Solomon and Aaron O'Toole, which is
00:40:12.020
sort of an obscure inside baseball thing. Let's say he was so wrong on that. All right.
00:40:16.500
So what? Why not let the conservative party members make that decision? In fact,
00:40:23.860
wouldn't that be a vindication of the official people being right? Look, we knew he was wrong
00:40:29.860
and the party voted him out. If you have to kick a guy out through trickery, that sort of says you're
00:40:37.140
worried that maybe the party would vote for him. I don't know. I think for them to choose to fight
00:40:42.340
him in court, it sounds like they have too much money if they're choosing to do that. Oh, well,
00:40:48.020
I'm glad I'm not a party member. All right. That's our show for today. Let me invite you to watch
00:40:52.800
Sheila Gunn-Reed's show, which is always great. That's coming up right now on our Rebel News Plus,
00:40:58.760
which you're a subscriber to. And hey, if you haven't already done so, go to whowantsout.com and sign
00:41:04.880
our petition to get out of the World Health Organization. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at
00:41:09.940
Rebel World Headquarters, good night and keep fighting for freedom.